Archive

Quotes

To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.

—Quintus Fabius Maximus, c. 203 BC

He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.

—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850

Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

—Mao Zedong, 1938

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865

I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.

—H. Rap Brown, 1967

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

—George Bernard Shaw, 1944

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

—E.B. White, 1944

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

—Immanuel Kant, 1784

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

—Laozi

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

—Anthony Trollope, 1862

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1830